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Asked by trolololo to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Leisha, Seyyed on 14 Jun 2012.
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Judith Sleeman answered on 14 Jun 2012:
In microscopy we often use 4D to describe 3D images taken as a time-lapse movie. Mathematicians use 4D for a bizarre abstract 4th spatial dimension that I used to understand well enough to pass ‘A’ level, but don’t any more! In the 5th dimension, creatures have tentacles….
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Anouk Gouvras answered on 14 Jun 2012:
Like Judith says, I think the 4th dimensions is used in lots of different ways depending on who’s describing it.
If you are a spiritual, mystical person then the 4th dimension is where spirits and non-visual entities live. If you are a mathematician/physicists then the 4th dimensions is another plane, perpendicular to a cube, which we can’t actually imagine because we can only perceive things in 2D as we are 3D creatures. A 4D creature would be able to see in 3D, so would be able to see above, below, inside, outside, left, right all at the same time.
I’m not very good at physics and maths, I can just about grasp the concepts but luckily there are lots of resources to explain the different planes and dimension. A famous book on this is called ‘Flatland, a romance of many dimensions’ by Edwin A. Abbot, where the author describes life in a 2D dimensional world. The organisms living in Flatland can only perceive things in 1 dimension. So they can only see lines. Then a sphere comes and tries to convince a square that there is another dimension where things have depth. The square can not imagine this until he is taken into the 3rd dimension. Then he can see what flatland is and what the sphere is. The square then wants to explore other dimensions, a 4th, a 5th etc but the sphere does not think they exist because he can not imagine them. We are stuck a little bit like the Sphere because we can not imagine the 4th dimensions or an entity in the 4th dimension. But physicist use these dimensions in developing their theories about the universe but you’d have to ask a physicist about how they do that.
Here’s a PBS site in case it helps http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/imagining-other-dimensions.html -
Seyyed Shah answered on 14 Jun 2012:
Cosmologists (scientists who study space) have put forward the theory that there may be more than one dimension. So, in theory, there could be more than four dimensions.
As mentioned by Chris, Judith and Anouk, the three dimensions we already know about are the ones we move through. We can move up or down, left or right, backwards or forwards. Each of these three movements (in a straight line) are dimensions.
The 4th dimension is time, as mentioned by Chris. If there were more dimensions, what would they be and what would they look like. There is a very complex theory called string theory. It has been developed by using very complicated mathematics which I don’t understand. But, it does suggest that there could be many dimensions.
The dimensions could exists parallel to the dimensions in which we exist (at the same time and place), or they could be separate. The laws of physics could be very different in those other dimensions.
Comments
Judith commented on :
Wow, Anouk, I’m feeling really ignorant just now! I’m off to amazon (sorry if that’s advertising, other book retailers do, of course, exist!) to get a copy of Flatland. Why have I never heard of it before?